Monday, April 30, 2012

------It seems that everyone is super excited about the new movie coming out: Prometheus.
A new Prometheus video just popped up on YouTube, and gives some tantalizing new information of the connection between Prometheus and Saturn.

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / QMUL

gotcha.

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Sunday, April 29, 2012

------
This floated my way somehow, supposedly originating from Reddit. Almost all of these are religious debates/lectures, but a few are simply science. This list will last me a hell of a long time. My late nights are now pretty much now taken care of! I can only imagine how many hours are in here.

Listed fifth from the bottom happens to be my favorite lecture of all time:Lawrence Krauss - A Universe From Nothing. (on cosmology)

**DISCLAIMER** I have NOT watched them all; so I cannot outright endorse them as a lot. Furthermore, I have not tested each link.

However, what's important to note is that these people are well known to be highly educated, have phenomenal credentials, and are supremely eloquent.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

------The title on Boing Boing caught my eye OF COURSE!"All you ever wanted to know about beards"

Read the beard's glorious history and learn exactly how women feel about them.
Created by: Online PhD

As a side note:

Ethan Siegel, theoretical astrophysicist and fellow bearded blogger (Starts With A Bang) posts yearly on a beard-off he takes part in called TheWest Coast Beard and Mustache Championships. Here's a snippet of his excitement about the Jan 2012 event: "...I've had a whole extra year to prepare for this, both in terms of facial hair and in terms of style; you don't want to miss the spectacle I've created for this competition!"

"Fusion continues in red supergiants until iron is formed. Unlike the elements before it, iron releases no energy when fused. This is because iron has the most stable nucleus of all the elements. Elements lighter than iron generally emit energy if fused, since they move from a less stable nuclear structure to a more stable one. By contrast, elements heavier than iron emit energy if they undergo fission, that is, by losing nucleons (i.e. protons and/or neutrons). Again, they go from a less stable to a more stable nuclear structure... ...The stability of the iron nucleus is represented by the fact that it requires the most energy to break apart."

Yeah, everyone wants to be Iron.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012

------In my opinion, this is the best space science multimedia to come out since ALMA started to release photos. Each of the 5 episodes last about 5 minutes apiece.

It's slickly produced, with top notch narration alongside stunning visuals
(both NASA animations and spacecraft photographs/videos.) They delve
into topics unknown by most, and explain them in a way that can be
understood by astronomy fans slightly above layman.

Mysteries of the Sun pt. 1/5 - Space WeatherIn This Episode:
This
video describes the direct and dramatic effects that eruptions on the
sun can cause at Earth. Earth's magnetic fields change shape and
strength in response to an eruption on the sun, and these changes in
turn can damage space born technology and disrupt communications
traveling through space. They also cause aurora.

Mysteries of the Sun pt. 2/5 - Solar VariabilityIn This Episode:
Rotations of the material deep
inside the sun cause constantly shifting magnetic field lines. This
variability drives the solar cycle, during which the north and south
magnetic poles reverse position approximately every 11 years.

Mysteries of the Sun pt. 3/5 - The HeliosphereIn This Episode:
The solar wind streams out from the
sun until it collides with material from the rest of space. This entire
bubble defined by the solar wind is called the heliosphere and
scientists study the very boundaries to better understand our place in
space.

Mysteries of the Sun pt. 4/5 - Earth's MagnetosphereIn This Episode:
Earth is enveloped in a
protective magnetic envelope called the magnetosphere. This can change
shape in response to the sun's effects, causing various types of space
weather at Earth.

Mysteries of the Sun pt. 5/5 - Earth's Upper AtmosphereIn This Episode:
Certain layers, high up in
the atmosphere also respond to incoming energy from the sun. These
layers contain charged particles and so naturally respond to an influx
of magnetic energy. Understanding such variability is crucial since it
can, in turn, degrade radio communication as well as satellite orbits.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Brian Cox, physicist at CERN, and dubbed "The New Carl Sagan," is famous mostly from the popularity of his work for BBC. In my opinion, it's the highest quality pop science in many years. First was the series Wonders of the Solar System [wiki], which was successful enough for the sequel series, Wonders of the Universe [wiki.]
The latter has been made into an iPad app (5 pounds/7dollars.) On the coattails of its release, a cheaper iPhone version will be coming.

Consider that urban areas get roofing resurfacing regularly (20-30yrs) and paving rehauls even more frequently (~10yrs)

What if...

You see where this is going. Absolutely brilliant idea.

Simply swap asphalt for concrete.

Phase out black roofing. The new "cool roofs" don't need to be shiny. White is just fine.

Together, roads and roofs like this one cover about 60% of urban surface area,

a higher % than I would have guessed.

A hypothetical policy spanning latitudes 45°N-45°S would mitigate global warming extremely effectively. As AAAS explains:
"Achieving the same amount of cooling by slashing carbon dioxide emissions would require taking every automobile on the planet off the road for about 50 years."

This idea is not brand new by any means, however it's going to need a lot more attention in order for a big change to overcome the status quo. The New York Times mentions that comedian Jon Stewart even joked about it back in 2009. A similar policy already enacted, as InHabitat points out, enforces the people of Copenhagen to plant vegetation on their rooftops... Different... but by no means bad.

Emerging science is a great catalyst for change.

Precision data, some of the newest available, has allowed for better extrapolations from simulations. A study out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows with significance several changes within the ecosystem of the Mojave Desert (the area of experimentation) Three sites were maintained: SOL, COOL, and CTRL. CTRL, as you'd guess, is the control. At SOL, photovoltaic surfaces (solar panels) were installed. The third site, COOL, simulated the cool roofing system that could have so much effect on us.

Reflectivity:
A reflectivity coefficient is referred to as a material's albedo.
Studies of the effects of changed albedo in a given area have been done
before, most heavily from 2008 on, but with some mixed results. It's hard
to set up experiments that: A) have an effect on the area large enough
to sift out signal from noise, and B) accurately measure the variety of meteorological data necessary for spread out simulations to be truly representative.

Interestingly enough, cool roofing has been seen to affect nearby
rural areas in several ways. Summer afternoon temperature increases,
and a correlation with less cloud cover AND lower precipitation
emerges. These possible effects upon implementation of policy could
make the situation a little bit hairier.

The idea's simple charm and ease of implementation is a recipe for attention and motivation. The idea still needs to spread far for international cooperation to come to fruition.

Strictly in my own opinion, I find this 70 centimetre long robot worm incredibly creepy. Regardless, it's still fascinating. The goal achieved here is working peristalsis (the movement allowing worms to crawl, as well as the waves of contraction in our gastrointestinal tracts)

Their accomplishment, as taken from their abstract:
"This method of locomotion is particularly effective in constrained spaces, and although the motion has been studied for some time, it has not been effectively or accurately implemented in a robotic platform."

This video (mostly silent) shows a 2d software representation of the braided mesh in movement, giving a clear idea of what's going on here. Then you get up close and personal to watch the big guy run.

This next video explains the robot in detail, in language only slightly above layman's terms. It was after watching this that I became really impressed.

A robotics crew in Italy have developed a soft bodied robot octopus. An entirely soft body is new to robotics.
It might be:
"able to reach impracticable places and simultaneously [show] manipulation capability, which could open up new scenarios for marine exploration and underwater rescue."

Monday, April 9, 2012

------
The letters QWERTY reference the upper left row of keys on what is
the current standard keyboard layout. (it's ok, go ahead and look if you have to)

What we've known all our lives is NOT an ideal layout.
In fact, a superior layout has been around since 1936.

The very first layout (by Sholes, who also created QWERTY) was essentially alphabetical, with very little thought involved.

QWERTY was invented in the
1870's in order to mitigate typewriter jams. The QWERTY design achieved this by separating "commonly
used letter-pairs (like "th" or "st") so that their typebars were not
neighboring, avoiding jams."

Enter stage left: an alternate layout, designed with both statistics of the English language and optimization of finger movement taken into account.
This is the Dvorak layout, for some reason still sitting "on deck." Its strange name comes from its inventor, Dr. August Dvorak.

Teaching new generations to use an alternative layout can cause no harm. Unlike the idea of "Esperanto" ("an easy-to-learn and politically neutral language that transcends nationality") Dvorak can't hinder communication between young and old. Any
typed message is identical on-screen despite the interface. Why haven't we changed? The only reason I can imagine that could be
complicating things is the lack of keyboards with the alternate layout
PRINTED on its keys. As we all remember, early on, sight is very much
required.

Touch typing is typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys. Specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory.
If you're good enough at this, switching layouts is hardly worth the
effort. That's why it makes sense for kids to start
out on the optimized Dvorak layout now.

The interesting problem of "awkward strokes" is a good enough example to persuade.

"Awkward
strokes are undesirable because they slow down typing, increase typing
errors, and increase finger strain. Hurdling is an awkward stroke
requiring a single finger to jump directly from one row, over the home
row to another row (e.g., typing "minimum" (which often comes out as
"minimun" or "mimimum") on the QWERTY keyboard). In the English
language, there are about 1,200 words that require a hurdle on the
QWERTY layout. In contrast, there are few words requiring a hurdle on
the Dvorak layout and even fewer requiring a double hurdle."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_keyboard#Comparison_of_the_QWERTY_and_Dvorak_layouts

Occasionally
I'll amaze myself by realizing that a word I just typed was all
on one hand. It seems to be one of those things that's funny; but I
can't place why... For the same reason, after reading the paragraph above and
now typing the word "minimum," I laugh. Go figure. Maybe it's my nerdiness.

Want to convert?For those who want to throw caution to the wind and convert, despite having proficiency with QWERTY, there does exist a "training
wheels" layout for Dvorak called Colemak. Similar to QWERTY, this helps
you ease your way into full on Dvorak by meeting half way.http://www.colemak.com/

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Stemming from trying to find out if the movie Zeitgeist was worth watching, I
delved into the legends of (1-mainly) Horus to Jesus (2nd) Mithra to
Jesus, and also the rep of the movie. Part 2 and 3 of the movie are
supposedly obviously conspiracy horseshit about 911 and such. The film
maker's first part focuses on this topic to set his scene for the
"control the masses" dealio. Zeitgeist 1 uses bits and pieces of real
shit, and mashes it up with things that are a real stretch, and also
things that are straight up lies. So, Horus doesn't have such exact
parallels to Jesus as he claims. There's a HUGE and really really
awesome article on skeptic.com tearing up Zeitgeist pt 1 and also
explaining in great detail what the legends are and what aspects are
open (but not really proven) to have influenced the finally written
Christian scripture. Horus's legend is fun and insane by the way.

An example of shady parallel: a Mithrian ritual was baptism, as
obviously is also the case in Christianity. Mithrians, however, killed a
bull and dripped the blood on you. wee bit different than some agua.
Washing is pretty common... well not as much then but the idea of
cleansing doesn't necessarily mean one begat the other. Wow.... I just
said begat... Horus had a fight with his uncle, they tore each other
apart, literally. (Horus into 14 pieces) then they made amends and
magically zipped back together again. This sets some precedence for
resurrection as a means to qualify for the messianic theme, but
resurrection is elsewhere too. Virgin birth? Gets kinda weird in the
grey-area since the stories are so crazy. You've got Easter at an
equinox and Dec. 25th is a solstice (to their calendar back then) but
still, implications that the newly spread story assigned significance
over top of already existing pagan ideas or dates (which did a lot of
times use the lunar calendar connected to harvest ideas) is extremely
hard to validate. When parallels happen so often though, it seems that
at least some of the time splicing occurs. Running away with that idea
is what I'd like NOT to do, and think I had a bit before today.

In the comments of the skeptic.com article, this guy goes apeshit and
writes about 15 pages. His whole point is that, separate from ANY of
the tale, there's enough evidence for us to think Jesus indeed probably
did exist. He connects it in the end with his concern that historians'
disagreements, along with the unrealistic want for 21st century style
evidence, paves the way for denialism of any of the worst atrocities.
Bit of a jump I'd say, but he has a lot of interesting points on the
way.

There are subtle nuances to find too, like how Jesus grew up in Galilee
but had to have (in writing) been born in Bethlehem in order for the
Davidic genealogy to apply to him. Which was very much important to the
authors.

One huge thing I saw all over is that the dated evidence we have reach almost at 0. Earliest I heard was ~40CE

As a side-note, a great fun fact I learned was that, heading for the
birth of the king, the "3 kings" were actually "wise men," except
really the translation is magicians, and the interpretation is
Zoroastrian magi. Furthermore, the text says that the three gifts are,
as you know, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. That is the only reason
people think that there were 3 of these dudes. There's never a mention
of how many are in the group.